Octavia Butler might have passed away a decade ago, but she’s still a major influence in the science fiction world. A new interview with Butler has surfaced, covering a whole range of topics, from writing to science fiction, and it’s well worth watching.

Butler began writing at an early age, and eventually published her first novel, Patternmaster in 1976. She would go on to write a number of other well regarded novels, such as Kindred and was awarded a McArthur Fellowship Grant in 1995.

Advertisement

This interview, conducted by Julie Dash was conducted in the same year, at the the 40 Acres & A Microchip conference, “the first black cyberspace conference in the UK for digerati of African descent.”

The interview contains a whole range of really interesting insights into Butler’s views on science fiction, cyberspace, technology, storytelling, her views on the future and quite a lot more.

Advertisement

I don’t write about normal things that bore the heck out of me; I write about things that interest me very much.

In speaking about her views on the future, Butler could have been conducting this interview yesterday: she touched on the disparity between wealthy and poor, climate change, and how these elements tied into her recent novels.